All is definitely not quiet on the western front—and Josh Brolin says there’s nothing wrong with that.
The Oscar nominee stars as Royal Abbott on Prime Video’s Outer Range, a sci-fi western about a rancher fighting for his land and family after discovering a mystery at the edge of Wyoming’s wilderness. The series has drawn predictable comparisons to Paramount+’s Yellowstone, the tale of the Dutton family starring Kevin Costner that has broken ratings records and breathed new life into the western genre.
Brolin, who previously appeared in 2010’s western True Grit, argued Outer Range is only adding new layers to the modern western.
“Yellowstone was the first—like we were with True Grit—in bringing back the Western, and that’s a great thing,” he told Variety on June 21. “If you piggyback on that trend, you feel like you are piggybacking. But if you are coming with something within the genre that’s wholly original, then you feel good about it.”
Besides, just because the shows might share similar aesthetics from time to time, it doesn’t mean that there isn’t room at the table for both. As Brolin argued, “There’s nothing other than horses and cowboy hats and maybe warring families in Outer Range that reminds me of Yellowstone.”